To ask what make up you loved in the 90s

[PennyDreadfuI]

I'm on a bit of a nostalgia trip this afternoon after finding a stub of MAC Viva Glam (the first iteration) which I bought from Harvey Nichols in 1994 (amazingly it still smells fine and applies just like it did 26 years ago). I bought it from one of my first pay packets and went on a waiting list to get it. I also remember being on a waiting list for ALL the Hard Candy pastel nail polishes a couple of years later - £12 a pop and I bought five or six! Also waiting list for Chanel Rouge Noir - took months to get my hands on it and in the meantime I mixed black and red nail polish which resulted in a lovely streaky mess 😂

At the start of the 90s I was a sort of goth/Manic Street Preachers fan hybrid so lots of smudged black eyeliner and red lips and glitter for nights out. Mid 90s I was Courtney Love obsessed with hair, clothes and makeup to match. Towards the end of the decade it was all MAC Spice lipliner and Carmex with shimmery eyeshadow. And for all of it, skinny perma-surprised brows which never grew back.

What were your favourite looks/fondly remembered but long gone 90s beauty staples?

My friend went to New York in 1995 and she brought us both back two tubes of Maybelline Great Lash each. My eyelashes were permanently glued together because I used to reapply it in public to show off so often 😂

I don't remember the Urban Decay powder SillyUn but I was pretty obsessed with their Manic (or was it Manic Panic?) lipstick.

Does anyone remember when Rimmel rebranded in about 1996 and went from the square nail polish bottles and push up lipsticks of our youth to the rounded bottles and tubes? And they smelled completely different? I've still not forgiven them. Bastards.

Rouge Noir nail varnish.
Paloma Picasso perfume.
Lads wearing 'jazz' by YSL
Boots 17 nude lipstick in that grey tube with the red line.
Frosted apricot lipstick by Estée Lauder, that made me so confident I pulled with the best looking lad every time I wore it!

Impulse 02 body spray

Coffee and heather summer lipstick

Collection 2000

Boots Number 17

Maybelline Great Lash from a trip to USA. God I thought I was so cool.

A Yardley lipstick called ‘Damson something’ (can’t remember).
Miss Selfridge did the perfect pinky-nude lipstick; no idea what it was called but I loved it.
Dewberry & Fuzzy Peach from the Body Shop.
Mary Quant did a make up range, I had the red nail polish and a black eye pencil. Still one of the best eye pencils I’ve ever used.

Juicy tubes in lychee, tasted lush.
Coffee shimmer, heather shimmer.
MaxFactor Lipfinity, you painted your lips and then put gloss over the top, it lasted for ages but started to look shit pretty quickly.
Space babe nail varnish, I think it was by seventeen.
That mascara with a white brush for volume and then a black brush to paint over the top. Oh and the tiny mascara that you would use to get to the small lashes, I can’t remember what it was called. I’d do that and then put 2000 calorie over the top. I still use 2000 calorie mascara.

Oh and that colour changing lipstick (Ultraglow?) went on green and changed to pink.

Oh my god, so much!!!

Hard Candy nail polish, they were the ones with the little rings on the bottle, weren't they?

No17 Bon Bon lipstick, there was also a Heatherberry that I loved. Les Belles de Ricci perfume. The Miss Selfridge T-shirt with the tie dye heart. Ruby & Millie lipgloss in the twisty pens. Accessorise flip flops. Trio sets of cleanser, toner and moisturiser. Wet and wild mascara (curtesy of a school friend who holidayed in Florida once a year). Anything from Morgan or Kookai.

I loved Deci Dela as well, Clinique Wrappings (I still have some, DH can occasionally pick it up abroad), and lots of Yves Rocher stuff - perfume-wise Magnolia and Clea - loved YR makeup.

Tribe perfume

Number 17 did a load of shimmer pastel eyeshadows which I loved and had the whole range.
Boots natural collection had this watermelon shower gel which I would love to have again as it smelt lovely.
So much body shop - bronzing pearls and white musk, and buying loads of bath pearls.
I still have a stargazer eyeliner. I dread to think how old it is! Most of the writing has rubbed off

Oh and deodorant of choice was Natrel Plus. The dark blue one.

And I dyed my hair with a harmony hair dye (in the triangle box) that I pinched out of my sisters room and instead of being Angela Chase (my so called life) red, it went pink!
My mum went mad

Rimmel morello cherry lipstick and a 17 eyeshadow trio called roses & chocolate. In all these years I've never been able to find something like the pale shade in it.

Perfume:
Impulse
Body Shop: White musk, Anania
Anais Anais
Noa
Paloma Picasso
Lou Lou

Make up:
Cornsilk powder
Meteorites
Lancome juicy tubes

Hair mascara
Glitter hairspray

Those chokers made from plastic

@belvoirbeaver I used to use the peachy coloured one - I reckon one sniff of that would take me right back!

[quote SteveArnottsbeadyeyes]@belvoirbeaver I used to use the peachy coloured one - I reckon one sniff of that would take me right back![/quote]
I was thinking that too. I remember it smelt great so I'd love to see if I still think that's the case! I wonder if it's still available anywhere.

And I had a glitter liquid eyeliner from Claire's Accessories!

@Therollockingrogue you can get Clean and clear oil control sheets on Amazon.They take away all oil on skin.Just as good.

I was a kid in the 90’s and I had a lipgloss from boots that was a little tube with a doe foot applicator with a fairy on the tube, it was a pink sparkly gloss but it was actually perfect - I wish they still did it now.

@AlexDrake1981 ive bought poison recently and its still great

If you loved Poison in the 90s and fancy a cheapie nostalgia hit, Cobra perfume oil from Al Rehab is almost identical. Couple of quid on eBay.

Miners lipsticks & Constance Carroll pressed powder (cakey as hell)

Miss Selfridge Iron Lady lipstick and their little bright nail polishes.

I'll add mine then go and read the others...mine is more late 80s and very early 90s.

Lancome maquimat foundation
Almay full coverage foundation (for some reason bizarrely I seem to remember it was called Rachel) it was fab
Bourjois blanc de base (I now realise this was a primer)
Bourjois pressed powder- smelt divine
Bourjois pink matte lipstick a' la Wendy James of Transvision Vamp
Charles of the Ritz loose powder (revenescence) a forerunner of the "light reflecting" stuff

Obsession perfume- I had bottles of it and body lotions, soaps and bubble baths.
M&S did a kukui range I used in the bath when not on the pull.

Body Shop Vit E range, elderflower eye gel and a fab foundation compact thingy.

I have a million photos taken in student bedrooms in t'olden days and always like zooming in on the shelves to see what deodorant (natrel the orange tin) etc I was using.

My friends wore Poison and Escape respectively. I recently got a 5ml poison extrait from eBay for about 99p. Happy days. (Elemis marine cream smells like it)